


The Cobbler's Wife

by octaviamatilda



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bickering, Blood, First Time, I'm not certain I'd say it was 'dubious' though, M/M, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Selfishness, Sibling Incest, Spit As Lube, Swearing, Tension, The consent here isn't precisely watertight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 09:52:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16134806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaviamatilda/pseuds/octaviamatilda
Summary: This will make sufficient sense as a standalone, but there are resonances here and there that have their origin in my other fics. The Ubbe, Hvitserk and Margrethe here are to be found in the short pieces "the anvil of my sword" and "at forlade sig pa to ankere" -- as well as in my ongoing "Bitter Boy", too.





	The Cobbler's Wife

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bitter Boy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13261119) by [octaviamatilda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaviamatilda/pseuds/octaviamatilda). 



> This will make sufficient sense as a standalone, but there are resonances here and there that have their origin in my other fics. The Ubbe, Hvitserk and Margrethe here are to be found in the short pieces "the anvil of my sword" and "at forlade sig pa to ankere" -- as well as in my ongoing "Bitter Boy", too.

Smedens hest og skomagerens kone har altid de dårligaste sko.  
_The blacksmith’s horse and the cobbler's wife are the worst shod._

He’s the only person in the world in whose company I’ve felt something which people wouldn’t think I was capable of feeling -- shame: I feel shame before him and him alone.  


Alcibiades’ Speech, _Symposium_ by Plato  
Trans. by Robin Waterfield

 

There is not time to tell the visitor to go away before the door slips open without welcome. Ubbe makes a shushing gesture, but smiles all the same. It is only Hvitserk -- come to get his portion, Ubbe thinks. It is late, but he rolls his eyes good-naturedly as his brother pads quietly into the room, and approaches the bed. 

‘Won’t you wake her then?’ Hvitserk is grinning, barely remembering to whisper and bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

‘No, I won’t.’ Ubbe rises carefully from his wife’s side, pulling on his tunic. He glances back to Margrethe; her blonde head is the only part of her that peeks from beneath the furs, which rise and fall as she sleeps. ‘And neither will you. You know how tired she gets when her blood comes. We’ll not disturb her tonight.’ 

Ubbe guides Hvitserk away by the elbow and he goes, biddable and excited like a child. About to shove his little brother out of the door, Ubbe halts at the look on Hvitserk’s face. His gaze flickers over Ubbe’s shoulder to Margrethe, and back again. Hvitserk’s eyes are bright and full of -- something. Ubbe sees the path laid out before them and has his refusal ready, but his brother raises his brows and murmurs low and Ubbe finds that he speaks other than he means. 

‘What about you, brother?’ Hvitserk sneaks a quick hand behind Ubbe’s neck to tug loose his braid, caught down the back of his tunic. ‘Are you tired?’

Ubbe half-cocks his head in the direction of the bed, listening for his wife’s slow breath. It is unchanging and sure. Too calm, and just a little too quiet to be the true sound of sleep. She does not flex or rustle, does not turn over. Ubbe pushes forward – let her say nothing, then, and do nothing if she will – and brings his face close to Hvitserk’s. He is not quite smiling, and his heart drums in his chest. 

‘No, I’m not tired.’

\--  
It is a small room at the back corner of the hall and a place for women’s work -- for carding, mending and weaving, to judge by the soft bundle of cloth that Ubbe trips over just inside the threshold. They have no candle or lantern and would not dare light one if they did, but the slats of the window are broken and the moonlight will do. Hvitserk disappears into the gloom, away to a dark corner hidden from the sight of the door, Ubbe supposes, but he feels suddenly foolish fumbling around in the dead hours of the night for -- for this. 

_I have gone mad._

‘Ubbe.’ Hvitserk calls for him.

He hears the quickening of uncertainty in his brother’s voice, and it is all he can think of as he steps hastily forward. 

‘I’m here. Where are you?’

There are great piles of folded cloth everywhere, some stacked as tall as a man, and Hvitserk emerges at Ubbe’s sword-hand, grinning now, from behind one of these. His arm flashes out upon the force of his warrior’s instinct, but he only grabs Hvitserk gently by the wrist and courses him back, back, almost stumbling, until his shoulders and his head thump lightly against the wall. 

Without a word, Ubbe heaves forward – in the well of his mind, it is as shield slamming against shield - but he is received by a supple thing made to bend, by his little brother’s open mouth. Hvitserk’s tongue pushes wetly against Ubbe’s lips and he gives in an instant, biting and panting and grasping Hvitserk by the neck. They drag and shunt one another, bumping noses and tussling with rough hands. Hvitserk’s teeth catch sharply on Ubbe’s lower lip and he hisses and spitefully kicks apart his brother’s feet, nudging in then with a strong knee to keep Hvitserk’s thighs parted and to oblige him to cant his hips forward. 

Hvitserk’s head drops back and Ubbe pushes his palm firmly against his brother’s throat, just to feel the quiver of the groan through skin and bone and blood. Ubbe lifts his knee, harder and higher, and Hvitserk grunts loudly. There is irritation in the sound, and Ubbe relents, scraping one hand down his brother’s chest and encouraging the rutting of his restless groin with the other. Hvitserk is grinding his stiff prick against Ubbe’s thigh and he is gasping and almost laughing and sweating hands begin searching their way beneath Ubbe’s tunic. 

‘What did you have in mind?’ Ubbe puts his forehead against Hvitserk’s, looking for a moment of calm: Hvitserk slips away from him, snagging his lips against Ubbe’s ear and biting painfully. Ubbe makes a displeased noise and Hvitserk sniggers against the side of his neck. 

‘You know me, brother. I never think things through.’ The false tone of Hvitserk’s speech catches like thorns on something fine and thin within Ubbe, and he thrusts his little brother back without thought. The resounding thud echoes horribly and for an endless moment, they stand listening for any approaching sound but unable to hear past the other’s dog-loud breathing. 

Ubbe swallows, feeling hot-skinned and angrier, somehow, than he can say. He holds Hvitserk’s gaze. ‘I’m beginning to think you just wanted a beating. We needn’t have bothered with all this if that’s all you wanted.’ 

Hvitserk steps close, slow, brows drawn down. Ubbe lets him approach, watching him carefully as he leans in to begin peeling Ubbe’s tunic over his head. It is gone, then, and Ubbe’s exasperation is cast in to the dark with it. Hvitserk drops his head with a gentle thump against Ubbe’s chest and the flutter of eyelashes on his skin is the slow closing of Hvitserk’s eyes. Ubbe’s arms come around his brother without a breath of hesitation, and he huffs out through his nose. 

‘Don’t fret.’ Ubbe mumbles against the top of Hvitserk’s head. ‘She hates me far more than she hates you.’

There is a soft gust of laughter against the damp skin of Ubbe’s chest, and then Hvitserk is shrugging off the binding of Ubbe’s arms. They feel heavy and useless to him as he drags them reluctantly from Hvitserk’s broad ribs; then his palm is brought up to his brother’s lips and Ubbe knows there must be a stupid look on his face. Hvitserk smirks, and swipes his tongue once, broad and slow, from the base of Ubbe’s hand to the tip of his middle finger. His little brother jerks one-handed at his own breeches and shoves Ubbe’s palm, slick and wet like fresh river-weeds, down inside, pushing his swollen prick into Ubbe’s grasp. 

Ubbe grips his brother hard, and Hvitserk judders and heaves, and splits the dark with a short cry. Ubbe’s other palm slaps itself over his brother’s gaping mouth and he works the rigid prick in his hand, rough and unforgiving as he does himself on certain lonely nights. Ubbe will give Margrethe a long look over a cup of wine and, sometimes, she will choose not to understand. He thinks of her, alone now in their bed, hunkered down in furs with eyes wide open and ears twitching like a rabbit, but choosing neither to see nor hear… and a dreadful vision comes before the eye of his mind. Margrethe is caught and held, like a young kit with its long, brown ears pressed flat in terror against its neck, and her eyes are pecked from her head by a sharp black beak -– but the image leaves him, snatched away by the thrashing weight of the body that is suffering, now, under his hands. Hvitserk is up on his toes, clutching at Ubbe’s upper arm and grunting.

Ubbe eases the pace, and speaks quietly through dry lips. ‘What do you want?’

Hvitserk stills, and then twists like a fish on a line. Ubbe’s hands slide from him as his brother turns wordlessly, picking at his breeches to open them fully and shoving them down his arse. He places his hands against the wall, and waits. 

Ubbe’s prick is like an oar and his stomach turns over. 

‘We don’t have anything. I don’t want to hurt you.’

Hvitserk scoffs, and cannot see Ubbe’s frown. 

‘I _don’t_ want to hurt you. Not like _that_.’

Hvitserk twitches his head slightly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ _It does matter._

Ubbe steps forward, tugging on his laces until his own prick springs free. He spits into his palm and swipes it over himself, and does it again, hocking up as much as he can and fisting it down his length. Pushing his mouth against the back of Hvitserk’s neck, Ubbe scrapes his teeth over the nobs of bone and the body beneath him curves back like a bow. Ubbe smiles, relieved, palming at Hvitserk’s arse and gripping at the soft flesh when he bucks back once, twice. His prick twitches at the sight of his brother presenting himself, tipping his hips back like Margrethe.

The edges of his fingers creep into the crack of Hvitserk’s arse and Ubbe nips at his brother’s ear. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m not a girl.’ Hvitserk grumbles. ‘Just do it.’ 

‘You might wish you were once we get going.’ Ubbe drags his tongue on the back of Hvitserk’s shoulder, nosing his tunic out of the way. ‘If you had a dripping wet cunt this would be easier.’

‘If I had a dripping wet cunt, we wouldn’t be doing this, would we?’ Hvitserk turns his head and crooks an eyebrow. Ubbe can say nothing, merely pressing his nose against Hvitserk’s cheekbone.

The smug crook of Hvitserk’s mouth, Ubbe thinks, is almost a better, truer, response than the words he speaks. ‘Or would we?’

Ubbe listens to the wet sound of Hvitserk licking his lips. He can hear the self-satisfied smile too.

‘If I was your sister, would you be finding excuses to bring me in here and fill my cunt, brother?’ Hvitserk’s amusement fills the last word until it spills over.

Shaking his head, Ubbe laughs, soft and low. ‘Shut up.’

Hvitserk plainly ignores him. ‘Just like Freyja and Freyr, no? I bet she enjoyed it.’

‘Well, I doubt you’ll enjoy this.’ Sticking his fingers in his own mouth, Ubbe wets them to the second joint. 

Hvitserk is grinning, shifting back and forth, and no patience or fear in him. Ubbe might have cuffed him around the head if the moment called for it, irritated and delighted equally at Hvitserk’s arrogance -- about to be split in two on his brother’s prick and not the least perturbed by it. Instead, he strokes his slippery fingers through the cheeks of Hvitserk’s arse and smears spit across his hole. Ubbe intended not to linger but his brother makes a strange muffled noise and so he pushes his fingertips harder against the tacky, furled skin. Ubbe’s gut tightens as it gives way, and Hvitserk begins to pant as he shunts backwards. 

‘Enough.’

Ubbe is silent – one more pass of his slobbery fingers over his prick – and then he is hauling Hvitserk backward by the hips and pushing inside him. 

He had told himself he must go slowly, but his brother’s arse is scalding hot and as tight as an iron band around him. Ubbe is halfway in, teeth clenched almost to shattering, before he stops: Hvitserk’s head hangs low and he sounds as short-winded as after a good fight. Ubbe runs a hand up the sweating back before him, placing his palm flat between Hvitserk’s trembling shoulders as he slips his prick backwards, and then sinks in almost all the way. 

Hvitserk slams his fist against the wall, growling. Ubbe feels the nails of his brother’s other hand gouging into the flesh of his arse and he shoves forward without thought to escape the sting. 

‘Hurts does it?’ Hvitserk chokes out a poor imitation of a laugh, cracked down the middle with pain. ‘Not sure what Sigurd gets out of this.’

‘Say the word and I’ll stop.’ Ubbe snaps. He is shuddering, struggling not to spend himself. 

‘Hah.’ Hvitserk sounds like he has taken an elbow in the throat. ‘If you stop, I’m doing you.’

Ubbe whispers his half-promise against the fine hairs on the back of Hvitserk’s neck. ‘Perhaps next time.’

Hvitserk makes a light, questioning noise, but it stops short behind his gritted teeth when Ubbe makes one full movement – out and in – in a smooth rolling gait. Hvitserk’s hair is in Ubbe’s mouth and his sticky skin tastes of dirt and salt – out and in, harder - and his body is solid and broad and tall _and not right_ , and there are no soft curves and no sweet womanly cries, and _by all the fucking gods_ , it is too rough and too dry – out and in, a hammer on an anvil - and it is all resistance, and Hvitserk must be in agony, and _Freyja’s cunt but he didn’t fucking wash_ and he stinks of wet leather and iron and horse shit, and it is disgusting. 

It is the best thing Ubbe has ever felt. He is hissing and groaning, one hand slipping on Hvitserk’s hip bone and the other wrapping around his chest to curl his hand around his straining throat. The fair head of his little brother lolls back on Ubbe’s shoulder, slack and helpless, and if Hvitserk can fire a bow the next day with the splinters from the wall beneath his fingernails then Ubbe will be very surprised. The soft sound that huffs out of Hvitserk’s gaping mouth every time Ubbe slides his prick up, in, _in_ , is the short quiet heave of a punch to the stomach, or the cloudy puff of the horses through their wide, feather-soft nostrils. His eyes are closed too, and Ubbe is taking more and more of the weight of his loosening body against his own heaving chest.

Ubbe wants to stuff his fingers in Hvitserk’s mouth, to touch his sharp teeth and stroke the slimy pad of his tongue, but his hands remain where they are. He thinks of Hvitserk’s earlier impatience: the prospect of cramming his spit-wet fingers into Hvitserk’s arse had gone beyond the range of his courage just then, but it mattered not for Hvitserk had been clear. Enough. Something, somehow, would break - Ubbe is certain - if he used him as he wished now. If he abused Hvitserk’s body as if he were anyone other than the person he loved most in Midgard. If he filled his arse with his prick – no mercy, no care - as if he were a slave bent over the nearest table. If he forced him to gorge on his dirty fingers until he was choking -- as if the greed, the presumption, the selfishness of his little brother could be paid back with one small, spiteful act of embarrassment.

_No. Never._

Ubbe swallows, slows his pace, licks his dry lips. He skims his hand up beneath Hvitserk’s tunic and catches a nipple with his thumbnail. Hvitserk groans and curves in on himself for a breath, before unfurling and clutching blindly behind him for Ubbe’s backside. There are no nails breaking his skin, but a desperate, encouraging grip. 

‘You…’ Hvitserk’s voice is rough, loaded. Unlike himself. ‘You were right. I didn’t enjoy it. It was like you’d stuck your sword up my arse at first.’ 

Ubbe cannot help but laugh, and his heart no longer feels like an iron weight in his chest when he hears Hvitserk snort too. Ubbe’s wrist is grasped gently and his hand turned palm up: Hvitserk spits a great pool into it and brings it to his prick. It is hot and full, curving up to Hvitserk’s belly.

‘Don’t spill in my breeches.’ Hvitserk bucks into Ubbe’s tight fist. He grunts when Ubbe squeezes the fat head. ‘I’ll have to wash them.’

‘May the gods protect you from soap and water.’ Ubbe smothers a grin against Hvitserk’s shoulder. 

‘I’m saying you can spend in my arse, you idiot.’ Hvitserk turns his head, almost meeting Ubbe’s mouth. His voice is hushed, but sharp all the same. ‘Don’t make me change my mind.’

Ubbe nods solemnly, feeling chastened. He pushes his face closer to Hvitserk’s, breathing damp on his jaw, his stubbly cheek, the corner of his eye: he watches Hvitserk’s lashes flickering as he strips his fist up and down his prick, and thrusts, slow and sweet, into his arse. It is looser, easier, now, and Ubbe attends to his brother’s struggle as if it were the most interesting sight in the great, wide world. Hvitserk is stuck, foundering, seeking two things that he cannot have at once: he ruts up into Ubbe’s hand, hissing through his teeth, and bears his arse back desperately like a she-animal in heat. 

‘Go on then.’ Hvitserk whispers. ‘Do as you want. I can take it.’ 

Ubbe has always thought that Hvitserk has a strange sort of ambition in him, a close-mouthed competitive heart that a fool might think dumbness. Or that Ivar thinks inadequacy. Ubbe hears it now, gratified and stung both. 

‘You can take whatever Sigurd can take, you mean.’ Ubbe thrusts forward viciously and without warning, his palm on Hvitserk’s chest stopping his cheek from cracking against the wall. 

Hvitserk chokes, and the sound of his shock makes Ubbe’s prick jump and his stomach twist. Ubbe does it again, harder, and brings his left hand to cradle his brother’s face, forcing Hvitserk’s gaze back over his own shoulder.

He thinks of the words he had said to himself, and the certainty of his thoughts, of his desires, shift and swirl like oil on the surface of water. _No. Never._

_Only if he wants it._

He murmurs, brushing his lips gently against the edge of his brother’s mouth. ‘As you wish.’

Then, he lets his gut lead him. He slams into Hvitserk hard, again and again, gritting his teeth and groaning like a man dying. And Hvitserk does take it, face pressed against the wood and mouth hanging open silently. Ubbe is burning, boiling over with the urge to provoke his brother, and Margrethe flashes through his mind like lightning…but Ubbe is not a husband here. He is a foolish boy, a big brother who should know better. This was Hvitserk’s idea, and they both know it – and when Ubbe puts his forearm across the back of Hvitserk’s neck to nail him flat with callous force, Ubbe knows too that Hvitserk will understand that this is not truly about competition. If Kattegat were set to burn and Ubbe had but one choice to make, one life to save, he knows who it would be.

Hvitserk is panting loudly now, close to his end as he fists his own prick hastily: the swell of anger in Ubbe’s chest is childish, for he can distinguish self-blame when it is present, when it bites into his heart because he has stolen away in the night and left his wife in their bed to fuck his brother. He knows it is petty when he stops Hvitserk from spending and pins his wrist to the wall. Ubbe grinds forward thoughtlessly, seeing himself move as though it is not he that shifts and bucks but feeling it in his stomach and his prick and his heart and knowing it can be no one else. 

Gathering as much wetness in his mouth as possible, Ubbe leers revoltingly, and licks a broad, filthy stripe up the side of his brother’s face. He grins, victorious, against Hvitserk’s temple when he tries to flinch away, growling and attempting to shunt him off. Ubbe is immovable. 

‘I can take it.’ Ubbe puts all of his self-pleasure in his voice, and slides his prick home languidly. ‘That’s what you said.’

‘I wonder. Who’s the more desperate to impress the other?’ Hvitserk’s throat bobs as he swallows, slow and with difficulty. His voice is raw to Ubbe’s ears. ‘You or me?’

‘You came looking for me, remember.’

‘I came looking for Margrethe.’ Hvitserk is silent for a long moment. He turns to catch Ubbe’s gaze fully. ‘But I’m glad her husband had her interests in mind, by not waking her.’

Ubbe drinks down the calmness of Hvitserk’s voice, choosing to believe for now that his little brother is being earnest. He holds Hvitserk’s regard, watching him carefully as he snakes his left hand up the length of his throat. Hvitserk remains still and unblinking when Ubbe presses his fingers inside his mouth, hooking them on his lower teeth and opening his jaw wider. Slowly, Ubbe slips his fingertips across the hot wet pad of Hvitserk’s tongue, pushing to the back of his mouth until his throat seems to haul itself up and he gags slightly. Clicking his fingernails against the sharpness of Hvitserk’s teeth, Ubbe retreats – and then surges forward again, adding another finger so that three are threatening to cram down Hvitserk’s gullet. Hvitserk allows it. A small noise rumbles in his throat and Ubbe hearkens to it but it seems a signal for nothing but self-comfort, for his little brother merely holds himself still and breathes loudly through his nose. 

Ubbe is far more selfish than anyone gives him credit for. Anyone, except perhaps for Hvitserk.

He curls his fingers, sure and firm, into the cradle of Hvitserk’s slippery tongue and slams his prick into him at the same time. Ubbe is not certain whether the gasping and choking is from the attack at one end or the other but he doesn’t stop. He ploughs into him savagely, using the leverage of his hand half shoved inside his brother’s mouth to give him some grip, something to fight against. Hvitserk heaves and coughs, and his breath rasps as if he were a horse slobbering and snorting through the bit in his mouth. Ubbe smiles at the sensation of spit dribbling down his wrist and, _by all the gods_ , he thinks his prick might burst from the heat, the smell, the sound of it all. 

Hvitserk is struggling, Ubbe feels it: he is slumped loosely against the wall, his hands dragging helplessly on the rough wood and his legs bent low with exhaustion such that they are no longer of a height. Twining his spare hand in Hvitserk’s hair, Ubbe lugs his brother up straighter. He can hardly reckon with the strange snarl that seeps from his own mouth. _Truly, it is not Ivar that is mad. It’s me. It’s me._

‘Open your fucking legs. Wider.’ 

Hvitserk groans and does as bid, and one, two, three thrusts more, and Ubbe is spilling in his brother’s arse, a boiling endless stream that seems to be turning his guts out of his belly. When it’s done, Ubbe notices, finally, how his brother trembles: he slips away from Hvitserk, wiping his hand on the back of his brother’s tunic, and turns him around.  
Hvitserk sinks back, dragging his sleeve across his mouth and chin. Ubbe watches how his hand shakes, and in the dimness of the moonlight he gazes at the fine glint of tracks down Hvitserk’s cheeks. His prick remains rigid and desperate between his legs but when he makes to retrieve his breeches from around his knees, Ubbe rushes to prevent him.

‘Don’t you want...?’

Hvitserk blinks at him, and his voice sounds like the first word after a long, heavy sleep. ‘I assumed I’d have to see to myself.’

Ubbe goes to his knees before Hvitserk can shift away, and takes his prick into his mouth quickly. Hvitserk curls over him with a surprised shout and jams his fingers into his hair. It tastes nothing like cunt and Ubbe doesn’t much care for it, but he brings Margrethe to his mind and the sight, many times seen, of her sweet mouth around Hvitserk’s prick. He moves as he thinks she would, sliding his lips firmly and minding his teeth. Hvitserk gives him no warning of his end, though Ubbe feels the prick in his mouth swell suddenly and rips his head away. He is too slow, and he gets a small mouthful and a soaked beard. It’s thick and salty and disgusting, and he spits what he can on the floor. 

‘Why did you do that?’ Hvitserk flops down too loudly. 

Ubbe winces at his lack of caution but it doesn’t seem the time for remonstrance, so he merely sighs. What would it fucking matter anyway, he thinks, if someone came upon them? What could they fucking do to the sons of Ragnar?

‘Suck your prick? Why did you think I wouldn’t?’ Ubbe kicks Hvitserk’s boot. 

Hvitserk says nothing for a moment, then shifts his weight where he sits, sticking his hand down the back of his breeches. ‘I think my arse is bleeding.’ Ubbe watches him flinch, and then he quirks his mouth. The small smile Hvitserk gives him is without rancour. ‘You ever do that to Margrethe, I’ll kill you.’

‘I’d never hurt Margrethe. I love her.’

Hvitserk gives him a long look. It’s usually Ivar who can make him feel like a stupid brute without a word, but Ubbe has cracked himself open to Hvitserk tonight, he knows it, and he feels something like shame at that moment. Now they seem to have begun something new, he thinks, he had better get used to the feeling.

Hvitserk rises, offering Ubbe his hand. They right themselves, lacing clothes and smoothing hair in silence. At the door, they make to part silently. Hvitserk will not stay with them tonight. Not after that. Still. 

‘Hvitserk.’ Ubbe whispers. ‘Will you come back?’

‘And wake your wife by crawling into her bed smelling like her husband?’ Hvitserk smirks. Ubbe feels his brother's hand come to the back of his neck, and butts their foreheads together gently. Hvitserk grins, sharp and bright – but his voice is sweet and low and honest. ‘No. I’d never hurt Margrethe like that. I love her.’


End file.
